


but i still wake up, i still see your ghost

by notthebigspoon



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 13:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthebigspoon/pseuds/notthebigspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>	“Don’t panic. Don’t freak out. Everybody will think you’re a crazy person because really, why would you be concerned about Cain anyway? Everybody knows you stopped talking after the playoffs. Which, why would they know that? Would Matt tell? Of course he wouldn’t. He’s got a pretty blonde wife and a pretty blonde baby. They used to be yours too but of course you didn’t get to keep them. That would be too easy. Your life is destined to suck.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Title taken from Some Nights by Fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i still wake up, i still see your ghost

**Author's Note:**

> One shot. Can be read as a sequel to [ i know that i'm not all that you got](http://archiveofourown.org/works/563281).

_“Don’t panic. Don’t freak out. Everybody will think you’re a crazy person because really, why would you be concerned about Cain anyway? Everybody knows you stopped talking after the playoffs. Which, why would they know that? Would Matt tell? Of course he wouldn’t. He’s got a pretty blonde wife and a pretty blonde baby. They used to be yours too but of course you didn’t get to keep them. That would be too easy. Your life is destined to suck.”_

Gary’s never been a big fan of the voice in the back of his head. Sometimes it’s nice but mostly it just reminds him of his failures and inability to get things right. Most nights it’s screaming at him that he’ll never get called up, he’ll languish in the minors until he gets a career ending injury. He’ll go back to Diamond Bar and find a job and be content to be nobody for the rest of his life. That’s what the voice says anyway.

Last year had been so much better... even though he’d started with the misery of spring training, loving Cain and not being loved back, it had ended with a husband and a wife and a kid and a chicken. It had been so good, almost perfect, all up to the moment that he found out that Chelsea was pregnant. It had come crashing down, a reminder that even if they loved him, they were married to each other. They had a daughter together, and now would have another, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He’d tried to bow out as gracefully as possible, which meant he didn’t do it with any grace at all. He’d sat down, spent the entire night weighing his expenses against his check and drawing out what was his money from their bank account. It was a pathetically small amount and yet it still felt like more than he had earned. He’d packed his clothing, sat them down and told them he was sorry but this was just how it had to be. Chelsea had cried and Matt had broken the TV and Gary had fled when the flat screen had crashed to the ground.

The off season was spent at home with his actual phone never once being turned on, carrying a crappy pre-paid model for emergencies. He worked out to the point of exhaustion every day just so he wouldn’t have to think. He arrived at spring training with more muscles and treated Matt like any of the other players, polite with an appropriate distance between a nobody and the god that had pitched a perfect game. The only time he cried was when he saw Chelsea and Hartley, his ex-wife starting to show and face practically glowing.

When Matt takes that drive to the knee, though, he spends the rest of the game panicking in his own brain. Ex-husband or not, he’s never stopped loving Matt and he doesn’t ever want to see him hurt. A part of him isn’t even concerned that they lost. He rushes into the clubhouse, struggles to get his breathing in check as he showers and changes. Matt is moving slowly but he seems to be okay. It doesn’t matter that he looks alright, Gary can’t stop from creeping close and checking for himself.

“Are... you okay?” He asks, biting his lip and staring as Matt tugs his jeans on. He can’t look away from the wrapping that tightly circles the older man’s knee. “That looked really bad... really bad.”  
“Ain’t gonna lie, it hurts like hell.” Matt answers, looking surprised but smiling. “It’s gonna be fine. Well, after some ice and ibuprofen. You okay?”

“Been okay.” He shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Been getting in better shape. Doubt I get called up but doesn’t hurt to be ready.”

“You never know, you might.”

Gary rolls his eyes. “It’ll take a natural disaster. They’ve got four designated and a spare in Belt. They don’t need me. It’s a thing I’m getting used to.”

“Not being needed?” Matt asks. His tone is angry, dangerous, makes Gary flinch and take a step back. “Because I can think of four people that needed you and you just walked away from them.”

“I was in the way. They really didn’t need me.” Gary says softly. “Especially the fourth one.”

“Shows how much you know. I’ve gotta go. Chelsea’s waiting.”

Gary wants to ask him to stay, or to apologize, or do _something_ but he doesn’t. Instead he watches the man he loves walk away angry and hears that mean little voice tell him that it was as much as he could expect. He couldn’t even make sure Matt was okay without managing to screw it up. He wishes he had the right to go after him and make sure that he was really alright.

That’s when a part of himself he doesn’t recognize tells him to stop fucking around before they lose Matt and the girls for good. He leaves the park without knowing who’s talking to him that he’s ignoring. He navigates to Matt and Chelsea’s house on autopilot, staring at the photo of the four of them that still resides on the dashboard of his truck. It was taken during the playoffs, just a few weeks before everything changed. They were happy.

When she answers the door, though, Chelsea looks exactly the opposite of happy. She looks at him with little emotion before opening the door further and waving him inside. Just like with Matt’s knee, he can’t help watching her stomach. She’s wearing a squirrels t-shirt that clings to it and he wishes he could touch it. He takes a breath, sits on the arm of the couch down from Matt, who refuses to look up from his beer.

“I know you’re mad. And I guess you should be, I don’t know. But please... try to see this from my point of view.” He says quietly. Matt doesn’t acknowledge him but Chelsea nods. “I loved both of you. And I loved Hartley. But.. another kid in the mix. Those are your kids. And I’d get in the way. I don’t want to do that. They need their mom and their dad, not mom and dad and Uncle Gary. I don’t want to confuse them. And I don’t want to be an albatross around your neck, something you had to pay for.”

“An albatross is only unlucky when you kill it.” Chelsea scowls, crossing her arms over her chest. “Now do you want to hear something that’ll tell you what a damn idiot you’ve been the past few months?”

“Don’t like hearing I’m an idiot... not that I don’t know it’s true, I know it is, but it’s still not a thing I want to hear. But what?”

“It’s your baby.”

Matt sounds churlish and Gary feels like he can’t breathe. He’s never really thought about that but the part where Matt is angry about it makes perfect sense. Of course you’d hate the guy that got your wife pregnant, even if you’d told the guy that she was your wife too. The anger doesn’t really hurt though, not when Gary is floating in a ‘holy fuck, I’m gonna be a daddy’ haze.

He gravitates toward her on impulse, sits square in the floor and just watches her stomach. Chelsea watches him with the smallest of smiles, nodding when he reaches out and gently touches her stomach. He tries to whisper he’s sorry and instead grabs her hand and kisses it, pushing onto his knees and leaning in to kiss her as hard as he can. She kisses back, fists a hand in his hair and tugs like she used to.

When he glances back at Matt, he’s met with a scowl. “We _tried_ to tell you, you jumped up little shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re goddamned right you’re sorry! You made our wife cry, you made our daughter cry and god forbid I admit it, but you made me cry! And not once have you ever apologized for running out the way you did. You’re a fucking coward.”

Gary flinches. “I know, but-”

“Not buts. And no more bullshit. Either you’re with us or you’re not. Either that’s your baby or it’s mine.” Matt snarls.

“But everybody will think it’s yours anyways.”

“Well, we’ll know the truth. Won’t that mean anything to you?” Chelsea asks. Gary takes a minute to thank God for her. If it had ever been just him and Matt, things would never work, it would always end in disaster. They need her, she’s the one who holds everything together and makes them both see reason. “Are you going to be there for your daughter or not, Gary?”

“I... it’s a girl?”

“Not only is he stupid, he’s deaf. Fantastic.” Matt grunts, pushing himself to stand up. “I need another beer.”

“I want to stay. I do.” Gary whispers. “I want to see her. I want to help. I want my family back.”

“Then stay. All we’ve wanted this winter was to get you back.” Matt answers, staring down at him with a miserable frown. “That’s all I wanted.”

Gary can’t find his voice. He settles for yanking Matt down into a hard kiss and prays that that’s answer enough.

**Author's Note:**

> And so starts me ficcing what happens after game events, at least what happens in my twisted little brain. Goes without saying that this is an AU.


End file.
